Waterloo Allen Square | 40.9m | 10s | Axia Geocapital | John MacDonald

[jta5]

This interesting proposal will remove the entire brutalist exterior of a 7-floor office building, then add three storeys in addition to a new exterior to develop 132 purpose-built rental homes above ground-floor commercial step from an LRT station. Not sure who the architect is. Council approved this unanimously last week.

Today:

Proposed:

Photos from the Record.

Photo from CBC

 

[junctionist]

The existing building is handsome in its proportions and clean lines but isn't that remarkable. The new facade looks like a dog's breakfast of design features but isn't too bad overall either. Sometimes, you just have to embrace change, even if it's not necessarily an improvement or evolution.

 

[Paclo]

The architect is John MacDonald.

Additional renderings from the submission package:

 

[artyboy123]

Definitely the renderings could use some work...but why not keep the brutalist exterior and build on top? The current existing building is the primary medical office building so it will be difficult to change the medical office uses into residential use.

 

[interchange42]

Definitely the renderings could use some work...but why not keep the brutalist exterior and build on top? The current existing building is the primary medical office building so it will be difficult to change the medical office uses into residential use.

Medical tech has been advancing faster than anything over the last decades, so it's quite possible that the doctors etc here are moving to facilities that are better set up for new communications and power needs anyway. Meanwhile, the developers here wouldn't be proposing this if they didn't think it would work, maybe the walls between the offices here are thin enough that a gut won't be so hard.

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